This, my first regular submission of
"Tidbits" is actually a quick and dirty race across
women-times with some very mini- reviews of a few favorite works
by women authors. I pick these because they have been among those
writers who have helped change my life and understandings. These
women defined their experience of life in ways I could relate
to, in ways which gave me an otherwise ungranted dignity to some
very undignified situations and circumstances in my life. They
helped me process my life with their definitions of woman's experience.
Today I can see how these tidbits were threads of my very fabric
of life. They helped weave and reweave the new AND raveling threads
together so it made sense, so I could detect hope in my darker
hours, days, or weeks.

Patriarchy is A Conceptual Trap. E. Dodson Gray, (out
of print). This title spoke Volumes to me and others. It was
used in a feminist theory course at the University of South Dakota.
However, unlike the mess blesser below, this one was absolutely
pregnant with multiple births of the Big Picture of LIFE for
me. The mess blesser got me through some of LIFE experiences
just by the hope and encouragement of the concept. This book,
on the other hand, put it ALL together in a very nice way. The
"nice way" showed me I didn't have to be angry at all
men for the way the arrogant authorities, religious experts,
and all the other power-wielding or exploitative male experts
ordered MY world and EVEN my perceptions around.

I could actually feel sorry for the
poor deluded males caught in this "conceptual trap"
with me. My 3 sons might not become the enemy if I used the knowledge
right and perhaps my 2 daughters could be spared suffering from
the invisibility and minimalization attendant to the female state
of being. One of the main bondage-breaking concepts of this book
is that authoritarian insistence on the "either/or"
conceptual trap to our thinking can be remedied with awareness
and replacement. The "either/or" is also manifested
in "less than/more than" , "better than/worse
than", "higher than/lower than" type comparisons.

For examples, the "either/or"
is so typical of the problems we can see upon analysis of many
legal decisions spewed out of the courts today. A person is guilty
or not. Sane or insane. Violent or non-violent. Black and white.
No shades of gray. It involves the totality and colorings of
our perceptions of what actually exists in other spheres and
planes of being. The quality of mercy is being strained by these
polar opposites as our conception of the world's functioning.
If a "higher-up", (ie. authority or expert, religiously-titled
person, or other digitary--or celebrity), makes a statement,
it is given MORE credence than any wise questioning or answers
a "lower-than" person has, (i.e., the layman, not FORMALLY-trained
and credentialed person). Our homes, communities, schools, universities,
organizations, businesses, consultancies, thus revolve around
the rather artificial credentialing system we've bought into.

This higher than/lower than credentialing
and recognition of those who "merit" merit deprives
everyone involved. It demeans the potential of the art of persuasion
and reason as being the forces behind group actions. Force and
violence, exploitation of the "lower thans" is at least
tolerated, and at worst actively promoted by, policies favoring
this unequal recognition of the worth and dignity of all humans,
of everyone's contribution. It discourages any critical exploration
of these conceptual traps for humanity, the earth and all its
sentient creatures.

Gray included neat illustrations demonstrating
the devastating effects which could be causally connected if
one started from the right perspective. If our world order revolves
around the concepts placing a "God" as highest, next
man, then woman, then children, then certain animals, then others
on down the ladder to totally demeaning things like grass and
trees, then it becomes, ipso facto, "OK" for a loving
god to order beatings of children and wives in the orders of
holy writdom. This "ordering" of hierarchical layers
can turn so-called holy matrimony into licenses to beat, maim
and kill, with other authorities looking the other way, refusing
to take it as seriously as if, say the President or the Pope,
or other dignitary were attacked or killed. After all, IF one's
life is valued as "less than" the President's or Pope's,
then it is at least conceptually OK to set different standards
for the unequal treatment of justice, merit and favors for people.

The patriarchal, or hierarchy, model
of ordering our governments and governemental relations means
that the "biggest" and most powerful will be listened
to whereas smaller and weaker will not. The fallacies in this
ordered thinking are not immediately apparent: intuitively and
emotionally, yes. But until they are well defined and illustrated,
they are somewhat hard to "conceptualize" and accept.
Harder still is the progressive retro-circular-thinking by which
our societies and homes could benefit. Patriarchy is a Conceptual
Trap points the way to a more equitable world concept but
does not go into the proposed solutions in any great detail.
The questions are raised however.

I believe that in these estranged and
violent times we would collectively be much better off if solutions
and suggestions were sought from accros the spectrum of humanity's
resources, to reconcile people's differences, to honor and celebrate
them, instead of hierarchically layering them. There are organized
societies which function well with egalitarian principles. There
are organizations in existence today which demonstrate the soundness
of promoting the dignity and worth of each human being, with
degradation and indignities one of another NOT being part of
the active functioning of the organization. Again, I will furnish
author's name for due credit further down the line.

Woman,Church and State: The Original
Expose of Male Collaboration against the Female Sex. My tidbit threads from and about this book
involve the validation of my personal struggles with organized
religion and how it affected the perceptions reaching into our
civic life. At the time I read this book it was printed for the
Women's Center at Aberdeen, S.D., or at least that was my source.
The Women's Center also circulated a film with documentation
of the witch burnings done with the collaboration of the churches
and states primarily of Europe. The film was very dramatic. The
statistics documented originally by Matilda Gage from her research
of actual old church/state records in Europe were staggering.

I do not recall offhand the summary
figures she compiled for female gender witch-hunt related deaths,
but it seems it was 9,000,000, more than Hitler's holocaust.
Talk about man's inhumanity to (wo)man! The book was of great
interest to me personally and life-changing in several respects.
Matilda Gage is rarely mentioned as being a leading suffragette
today, after doing much of the early work alongside Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and the others. Because Matilda also actively promoted
church reforms, and partly because the others thought these too
divisive in the vote struggle, some sought to minimize her recognition.
Her revelations regarding the role the church has played in the
subjugation and exploitation of women were very validating of
some of my earlier experiences. I see this still going on in
many places, too many places, with the various religions still
working to keep woman in her place ... sometimes lower than a
dog, as though they should be "lower than" too. (Some
dogs, like some women, are much more noble than SOME male humans.
It seems to have worked).

Gage's more scholarly approach to the
totality of the concepts of equality, and a difference with the
other suffragettes as to the amount of support to be given to
black men in their struggle, have served to place this heroine
of mine almost in oblivion. I was awed at the time I read this
book that a woman living in those times was able to have the
education and the means to pursue the research and commit to
the struggle as she did. At the present time, as I write this
"tidbit" I cannot even find my copy of the book. Its
here somewhere.....I will get back to readers with more on Matilda
later. I feel she is still a heroine for our times.

God Bless This Mess. (Circa 1970s). As promised, this is a "quick
and dirty". This tidbit is actually just a TITLE of a book
by a woman author unknown to me at this point in time. I do not
have the time to research her, but promise to do this detail
in the future to give her credit where credit is due. I never
had an opportunity to read the book itself so I cannot even pass
judgment on it. I have a feeling it might be a trifle too "religious"
for me. However, that Title alone spoke VOLUMES to me: God
Bless This Mess. She didn't have to say more for my comfort
and encouragement. It spoke of empathy for my situation.

At the time I believed my personal and
domestic life was in quite a mess, and any encouragement that
there was light at the end of the tunnel for me and my children
was eagerly appropriated. As I shared with members of a women's
list, I think I'll soon undertake a book about "Poor Housekeeping".
More on that later, suggestions welcome on how to do it. Thats
it for now, folks. I have lots of good books to do more than
quick and dirty on which I will share in time to come.

For instance, consider this partial
quote in the preface of a 1935 book by Eleanor Booth Simmons,
titled simply "Cats". She tells describes a homeless
woman she had met who was carrying a forlorn cat to a shelter,
"I has a feelin' for them," she said. "Of all
the creatures in this world, cats an'women has the hardest time."
Can you relate?

I could and do. THERE IS A BETTER WAY
... TOGETHER WE CAN FIND IT AND MAKE IT A CRADLE OF HUMANITY.

WOW! Update to my following "Tidbits"
submission: I need to tell the world.... I did not send this
off last evening feeling uncomfortable with not finishing the
credits and more of the "Woman,Church,&State".
I prayed my own way...to G.O.D. . .i.e., "Good Orderly Direction"...(If
She/He IS really "God" she'll understand: for more
"direction" on this.), Not being able to find my book
copy I went to Internet this morning to plug those keywords into
search to see what I could turn up. What I found THIS time was
much more than I bargained for. Not only did I find a wealth
of new websites with feminist books/writings online but a bit
of heroine Gage's history I never knew before.

She, like me, was privelged to spend
time with a matrilineal Indian tribe...the Iroquois in her case,
Tlingit-Haida in mine, which influenced all her further work
and influenced her belief, LIKE MINE, that a more just, peaceful,
and functioning egalitarian society is not only possible...but
WORKING MODELS!! AND, She, like me, was adopted into the WOLF
CLAN! I got goosebumps, dear Readers!! I AM in happy hunting
grounds NOW!! :) MORE LATER.